


A Coherent Splendor

by darkforetold



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 04:34:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3556223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkforetold/pseuds/darkforetold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the Renaissance, and Dean is a sculptor suffering from a severe lack of inspiration. It isn't until Dean sees Castiel naked that inspiration finally strikes and, three years later, sculpts a statue the likes of Michelangelo's <i>David</i>. What happens afterward leaves them both spent and breathless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Coherent Splendor

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** Dean is the Michaelangelo-style artist who locks his patron Castiel out and won't let him see the art until it's done. It turns out to be a masterwork along the Sistine Chapel/David statue lines with majestically-sculptured male figure modelled on Cas. Crazy hot sex ensues. Has to be Renaissance, with the artist reveling in the new celebration of the beauty of the human form and the patron swanning around in rich velvet.

Dean sat in his borrowed bedroom, blanks sheets of sketch paper loose in his calloused hands. He sighed heavily and tore his eyes away, up to the coffered ceilings. Brightly painted frescoes by talent far better than he stared at him, as if ridiculing him. Meticulously carved bedposts, masterfully sewn tapestries mourned the lack of ideas swimming around in his head. _Like Michelangelo's David_... his latest patron had said, giving him a task as insurmountable as climbing stairs to Heaven. He stared at the dark, rich velvet that hung like a shroud over the bed, down to the stone flooring, then took in the details carved thick in the archway. Like a Frenchman's blood, wealth had been poured into every surface, every piece of furniture, every inch of wall space, the moldings and keystone, a work of art. Inspiration surrounded him, but he drew nothing from it. In an age shadowed by the likes of Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci, Dean found himself at his wits' end. 

He crumpled another sheet of sketch paper, then ran his hands through short hair. In an empty room his patron had set up, a sizable block of Carrara marble waited for him. He hadn't touched it in the weeks it'd been there. Failure loomed over him like a disease and clawed at his brain, making his head spin. Dean rubbed at his tired eyes. The pages were still blank when he opened them, and his sigh was sharp enough to cut marble.

Dean threw his pencil and papers aside and launched himself from the bed. His duckbill shoes whispered down the halls, and he nodded to the servants carrying the day's purchases, to the fellow sculptor carving the final details into another archway. The fifth royal son, his patron, had no need for frivolities. Armored soldiers didn't frame his doorway, though this was a time of war. Dean rapped on the ornate door and waited. Nervousness twisted his gut. Soon, he'd be penniless again, thrown out like a lame dog, all because he couldn't—

Impatient, he growled low in his throat and pushed in. Sage leaves, lavender flowers, and roses mingled with the dampness of the air. He paid it little mind as he swept into the room, mouth open to speak. Not a single word came out. Nothing about how his muse had abandoned him, that another artist would have to... Dean swallowed hard, his throat dry. Not even God could've prepared him for this.

There, in the middle of the room, stood his patron, Castiel, undressed save for the sunlight coming in from the windows. His skin was as pure as flawless marble, the lines of his nude body breathtaking as if God Himself had a hand in creating him. His lean torso flared into angled hipbones, his thigh muscles corded with morning runs from the heart of Naples to the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. His collarbones swept out to gentle shoulders, his face etched in broad angles. His eyes were sapphires, his smile the breath of life, and his cock... Castiel stood there unashamed, and Dean flushed like a schoolboy.

"Is there something you require, Dean?"

He shook his head vigorously, turned and fled the room, back to his own. With sheets of paper and pencil in hand, Dean began sketching, bleeding every detail he could remember on smooth parchment.

***

It'd been three years of memorizing his lines and carving marble. Dean brushed away dust on his toes and stood back, looking at the finished statue for the hundredth time. He'd completed it weeks ago. Castiel had been gone for months, proving to be an excellent tactician; someone his father, the King, needed during the wars against the French. Even when Castiel had returned to Naples, Dean never once allowed him to see the statue. It had to be completed, had to be perfect, before anyone could lay their eyes on it. Today, Castiel would. His patron was due back at any hour, and Dean fidgeted with nerves.

He smoothed down his doublet absently, shuffling his duckbill shoes just to make noise in the empty room. The sound echoed endlessly, music to the dust motes playing in a strip of light. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the doors finally opened, almost stopped breathing altogether when Castiel came into the room. His blue eyes were fixed on his finished statue as he slowly crept into the room. He was as beautiful as he'd remembered him all those months ago. This time, though, he was clothed, doublet hiding his toned frame, the short cape of black velvet draped around his shoulders. Still breathtaking. Regal. Divine.

Dean nervously shifted with inadequacy and forced his eyes somewhere else. To his statue, to the very likeness of his patron, naked and made of the finest marble. _Like Michelangelo's David_... only more beautiful because it was Castiel. His statue stood proud, in a modified _contrapposto_ ; the only difference being that his statue was facing frontward, the shoulders square and back. The pose spoke of Castiel's quiet, yet fierce strength, just simmering beneath his skin. His head, like David's, was turned to the side, though the eyes slanted down, toward the ground in a show of humility. His relaxed hands at his sides were patience, every detail—veins, muscle—humanity.

He dared to look at Castiel again, fearing retribution because it wasn't what he'd wanted. Dean found Castiel staring at him, studying him, lips parted and breathing slightly elevated. It wasn't anger he saw in those blue eyes, but something else just as intense. The tension in the air was thick, but not with his patron's displeasure. Dean swallowed hard and opened his mouth to speak, but it didn't work, just like it hadn't three years ago. Again, his eyes went elsewhere, to Castiel's body, to what he knew lay beneath black velvet. He reached out to touch without thinking, running a hand down his strong, toned chest. Castiel's breath hitched.

That was all he needed.

Dean grabbed his arm, the back of his neck, and yanked him in. Their lips crushed together, both of them hungry as if they were starved. Castiel whimpered beautifully beneath him, his fingers just as greedy, just as painful and sharp on his skin. Like a blind man, Dean used his hands to see his body, palms framing his face, fingertips sliding over the hard edge of his jaw line. Days' worth of stubble prickled his skin, and he bent low to kiss, nibble, and bite there, trailing kisses down his neck. Castiel let loose a low growl, and it trembled against his mouth; a forewarning to Castiel's desperation, the way he grabbed and tore at his peasant's clothing. He heard a rip, but didn't care, and focused his attention on Castiel, on the doublet that separated him from skin. Dean removed the short cape first, throwing it aside, and the amber gorget next. He laid siege on the velvet doublet, then everything else, leaving Castiel as naked and beautiful—even more so—as his marble likeness. They were skin to bare skin then, possessive hands exploring, touching, grabbing. Castiel groaned low and dragged him to the floor.

Velvet cushioned them as they writhed together in passion. Dean mouthed his way down Castiel's body, from his neck to his left nipple, lapping at it to the tune of Castiel's groans. He nipped at the bud, and Castiel arched his back, whispering his name. It sounded sweeter than church bells, more heavenly than a Catholic choir. Dean needed more of those, so he traded the left for the right, licking and mouthing the nipple as much as he dared. Then, he moved lower still, kissing his chest while both palms ran flat up his toned torso. Fingers pinched abused nipples, and Castiel shouted, the echo almost deafening. It didn't stop him from taking Castiel's cock in his mouth, didn't stop him from sucking until he couldn't breathe. He took it as far as he could, then pulled away altogether.

Castiel hissed, and Dean appeased him by spitting on his hand, stroking himself once, twice, before lining himself up with Castiel's eager hole. Castiel kneaded his fingers in velvet as Dean plunged inside, his groan something between pain and pleasure. Dean let him get used to the intrusion before setting a brutal pace, slamming into him over and over again. The sound of slapping flesh reverberated against marble, vaulted ceilings, carved molding, and Castiel's groans, blissed and beautiful, mingled with it. Dean grabbed onto his angled hips to keep him from slipping away, and Castiel responded with another sweet noise. Then, Castiel lifted himself up off the floor, with only his shoulders touching, to accept every punishing thrust as if surrender was his only choice. And Dean marveled at him, his body more stunning like this, willing and needy, than it ever had been. He took him over and over again, each groan the kindling to his flame, until sweat glistened over their bodies, until he couldn't tell where he ended and Castiel began. This, he hoped, was just the beginning. That their true destiny was creating a masterpiece all their own; a love that would last through the ages.

The thought alone ended him. With a low growl, Dean spilled his seed, and Castiel quickly followed. They lay there in black velvet, spent and liquid against one another, with Castiel drawing lazy circles over his skin.

This was splendor, and worth more than all the ducats in the world.


End file.
